Editorial | University of Louisville's outside audit is a start

The University of Louisville has decided it's time to hire an outside auditor following the latest startling revelations of financial fraud at the university.

And the latest alleged scam is impressive-federal authorities say an employee at the health sciences campus may have diverted more than $2 million over six years from a university medical department and several medical practices he managed without anyone noticing.

And it follows a string of such incidents at U of L where a grand total of $7.7 million in money was either misappropriated or outright stolen.

Four employees have been charged with criminal offenses in connection to stolen funds in recent years and a fifth former employee has been charged after U of L found $2.4 million in excess law school scholarships were promised to incoming students.

So last week's action by the U of L board of trustees to engage an outside auditor to review financial operations is a good start. But it's not enough.

Fraud and mismanagement on this scale-and the attendant publicity-are unlikely to inspire confidence in parents and students facing annual tuition increases.

Officials promise a thorough review of financial management at U of L and will ask the auditor for recommendations to tighten controls, The Courier-Journal's Joseph Gerth reported Friday. President James Ramsey pledges that U of L will move to a more centralized financial management system, presumably to prevent more employees from dipping into the till.

Still, university officials could do more to regain public confidence and show they are sincere about what appears to have been a veritable cascade of major fraud cases tied to U of L employees, some of them high-ranking. Those include former education dean, Robert Felner, now in federal prison for stealing $2.3 million from U of L and other institutions.

For starters, the board could be more forthcoming. After discussing its financial, er, shortcomings in a session closed to the press and public, it reconvened in public and voted - with no discussion-to hire the outside auditor.

And state Auditor Adam Edelen should take a look at this disturbing pattern of financial fraud and determine whether it is indeed a trend, whether U of L is particularly vulnerable to fraud-and if so, why-and what can be done in future years to at least reduce, if not eliminate, such occurrences.

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Editorial | University of Louisville's outside audit is a start

The University of Louisville has decided it's time to hire an outside auditor following the latest startling revelations of financial fraud at the university.